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Is this pilot lost? Unusual flight pattern?

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Is this pilot lost? Unusual flight pattern?

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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 1:37 pm
  #16  
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Originally Posted by Sykes
Holds don't happen that often in the US these days, and are mostly used for unexpected events that significantly impact the airport's arrival rate.
Or for specific instrument arrivals (mostly lower traffic airports) or training. I can't count the number of holding patterns my instructors put me through during instrument training.
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 1:41 pm
  #17  
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Originally Posted by mahasamatman
Or for specific instrument arrivals (mostly lower traffic airports) or training. I can't count the number of holding patterns my instructors put me through during instrument training.
Heh, true, although in 9 years of instrument flying I've done precisely 3 holds for non-training or currency purposes. (Oddly enough, one was on my first flight after my instrument checkride.) Naturally, I’d expect an airline pilot to have a lot more than that, but it’s still not nearly as common as other methods of managing arrival traffic.
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 1:59 pm
  #18  
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Originally Posted by username
The pilot's ex lives down there. They were taking a detour to flush the toilet over the ex' house.
Originally Posted by DMSFCA
Plus he wanted to see who's car was parked in her driveway this late at night.
I was trying to be gender neutral.

This was actually from an episode of "Coach" from the 80s or 90s. They just won some Bowl in Hawaii and was on the way back to MN. Then one of the characters (the daughter?) told the Coach to flush the toilet when the plane is over LA since her ex decided to become an actor and moved to LA. Something like that...crazy how some of us remember airplane jokes
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 2:21 pm
  #19  
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Originally Posted by username
The pilot's ex lives down there. They were taking a detour to flush the toilet over the ex' house.
How do I get a couple of addresses to this pilot?
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 3:26 pm
  #20  
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Nothing against OP, but this kind of lack of aviation knowledge is the primary reason I get from pilots why Channel 9 isn't turned on anymore
I've heard similar comments when the flight map shows we're going over Alaska/North Pole vs a 'straight line' to Asia eg. "This pilot must not know where he's going"
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 4:19 pm
  #21  
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If you want to see some crazier tracks than this (vectors, multiple turns in holding) look at the approaches into LHR at midday on any given day.
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Old Feb 15, 2020 | 5:55 pm
  #22  
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Originally Posted by clubord
Who in the world are you flying with? There’s so much gross negligence in that story it’s alarming.
It was a long time ago. There were two of us flying in a Cirrus SR20 or SR22. The pilot was one of three owners. The plane crashed 3 weeks later, killing one of the other owners. Don't ask me why.
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Old Feb 16, 2020 | 3:50 am
  #23  
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Looks like perfectly normal pattern when there is congestion on approach.
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Old Feb 16, 2020 | 4:57 am
  #24  
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Originally Posted by darrenpb
Gotcha. Thanks. I always assumed flights had to circle around the airport in a holding pattern to get in line to land when it is busy. Didn't know they could just zig-zag their way in.
Originally Posted by Sykes
Delay vectors, however, are super common for creating an extra mile or two of spacing when necessary. Often they're just not quite as dramatic as this one (e.g. a turn in a slightly less-than-optimal direction).
Yep, Ive been on plenty of mid/trans-cons into SFO where this had to be done when we were still in Nevada.
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Old Feb 16, 2020 | 10:13 am
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Oakland Center normally does the S-turning a bit farther to the east than that but the magnitude of the turns is pretty normal for SFO.
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Old Feb 16, 2020 | 10:43 am
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One of my favorite delay vector pics... UA880 January, 2019.
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Old Feb 16, 2020 | 6:52 pm
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[MENTION=736187]jonisflying[/MENTION]: That's just holding in the stack. Extremely common for approaches to EGLL.
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Old Mar 2, 2020 | 6:30 pm
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Originally Posted by worldtrav
[MENTION=736187]jonisflying[/MENTION]: That's just holding in the stack. Extremely common for approaches to EGLL.
Yeah, I've flown into LHR so many times and I'm pretty sure that is the same on EVERY flight! LOL!
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Old Mar 3, 2020 | 4:50 am
  #29  
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The controller(s) may well have been considering doing a vectored "hold" but were able to turn them back toward SFO earlier. It is quite rare to get an actual hold, published or unpublished, for anything other than practice in the US. If you do, it is because you are heading somewhere that had their acceptance rate take a dive and may have different direction flow. SAN gets this when they have to switch to Runway 9 for the ILS. That is one of the few time I'll see stacks of holds - to the north over Santa Catalina and east seems to either be over IPL or using a fix.
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